


Lassitude

by fujisaki_chii



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Another Episode
Genre: Dysphoria, Emetophobia mention, Gen, Mild Transphobia, Misgendering, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:18:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2406605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujisaki_chii/pseuds/fujisaki_chii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was uncommon that she finds herself speechless, but a few months back, as she stared at herself in her mother's bedroom mirror, she couldn't find the words to describe how she felt. She couldn't understand the reason her breath hitched at the sight of her school uniform. The reason she felt herself squirm under her mother's gaze, like worms were trying to dig up through her skin. The reason that why, after coming home from school that day and spending hours just examining herself alone in the mirror, she felt a lump form in her throat and a feeling of dismay at her own reflection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lassitude

**Author's Note:**

> So Another Episode came out and I saw a really cool headcanon on tumblr about trans!Nagisa, and with the original creator's permission I wrote a story that I feel is very heavily based on personal experience. Transitions from female to male pronouns.

“Gender dysphoria: A condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity.”

Nagisa's eyes skimmed the words on the page over and over again. Gender dysphoria. It was a perfect match- the word that had been playing on the tip of her tongue for what felt like forever, now. It was uncommon that she finds herself speechless, but a few months back, as she stared at herself in her mother's bedroom mirror, she couldn't find the words to describe how she felt. She couldn't understand the reason her breath hitched at the sight of her school uniform. The reason she felt herself squirm under her mother's gaze, like worms were trying to dig up through her skin. The reason that why, after coming home from school that day and spending hours just examining herself alone in the mirror, she felt a lump form in her throat and a feeling of dismay at her own reflection.  She didn’t feel right.  Just seeing her own body when she dressed in the morning made her dreadfully sick, like she was going to vomit up everything in her stomach just because of her own flesh.  It was confusing.  Scary.  Of course she’d never slip, never show that she was scared- especially when she didn’t know where the confusion and anger and sadness stemmed from in the first place.

Her attitude had only worsened during school; this annoying, red-haired kid that Nagisa had never learned the name of nor cared to ever learn had been bugging her lately.  Constantly trying to be around her, yelling in her ear and asking what she was doing day after day.  She tried to tell him to leave her alone, but the nuisance just wouldn’t leave her be; today the boy’s friend had to physically guide him back over to his desk- she thought that maybe the masked kid had picked up on her, ‘If you say another word you’ll regret ever being born, you little demon’ stare that was being aimed at the oblivious, fiery-haired boy. That night, while Nagisa sat hunched over in her seat at the dining room  table while the rest of her family was quietly finishing their dinner, she decided to speak up. "I've been doing some research outside of school. On some... Other subjects."

"Other subjects? What other subjects could be more important than the ones at Hopes Peak?" He asked, raising a brow. Nagisa could feel sweat forming on her brow, her hands nervously tapping away on her knees as she contemplated exactly how to put what she was trying to say into words that her father would understand.

 "Well," she began, casting her eyes down towards her plate of untouched food, "I, uh... I read this... This study. This study that a majority of female students reported that wearing a skirt as part of their uniform was distracting. They would... Uh, play with the hem and have to readjust it a lot." She was lying, and she could feel her hands growing clammy. "So as not to get distracted during class, I think that maybe, just maybe... I could wear the boy's uniform instead?"

Her mother let out a little laugh, waving her dainty hand dismissively at her child's comment. "Wear the boy's uniform? But why, dear? I know that you wouldn't get distracted by something like a skirt," she smiled, "Besides, you're a young lady. And a young lady must dress like a young lady." Nagisa's hands clenched at her skirt so hard that her knuckles turned white.

"Well, what if... I... What if I didn't want to be a young lady?" The reaction was instantaneous; her father's glass nearly slipped right out if his grasp and her mother let out a little sound of shock, which she quickly stifled by pulling up a napkin to her mouth, vainly attempting to hide her expression and play it off as calmly as possible.

"What do you mean you don't want to be a young lady?" Her father scowled at her, his gaze burning holes right through her.  

"W-Well that's not what I mean!" She stammered, trying to stop herself from shaking under her father's gaze, "I-I mean I don't want to be distracted! I just... Want to focus on my work! That's all." She could feel that familiar shaky feeling in her breathing; why was it so damn hard just to say what she wanted to say?

After a few long moments, Nagisa's father went back to his meal. "No wearing any boy's uniform. I don't want to hear about this again."  The blue-haired child just nodded and dismissed herself from her place at the dinner table, dashing up the stairs and throwing herself into her bedroom.  Once the door was firmly shut behind her and she was sure her parents weren’t going to follow, she let herself sink to the ground and tuck her chin on her knees, hugging herself so tightly that she felt like she was going to compress in on herself.  She didn’t cry- she wouldn’t allow it- instead she just sat there, unmoving for God only knows how long.  She hated being seen as a girl.  She didn’t want to go to school tomorrow- she didn’t even want to leave her room.  She stood up, rummaging around her room vaguely for something, anything to distract her.  Blue eyes settling on her backpack, she zipped it open and haphazardly dumped the contents on the floor; several textbooks, a few binders, a dictionary, and a crisp, off-white pencil pouch.  She had finished her homework earlier in the day, but nonetheless she grabbed her social studies textbook and sat on her floor, opening it to the first page and reading the small, dull font spanning the page.  

She got lost in the text, reading things once, twice, three times just to ensure that she had soaked up the information.  She hadn’t even realized how caught up she had been in her reading, because she was jolted out of her book by her alarm clock blaring.  She had been up reading the entire night, unbeknownst to Nagisa until she actually looked out of the window and saw the sun rising up in the sky.  Stuffing all of the books and papers besides the one she had been reading back into her backpack, she let out a sigh and shook off the uniform she had worn the night before into that morning and slipped on a crisp, clean one- she made sure she didn’t look down at herself, simply stripped off the articles and threw the new ones on.  As she made her way downstairs, book in hand, she couldn’t help but feel a little better- well, not better.  More numb, than anything; she wasn’t thinking about her clothing or her body inside them, she was simply thinking about what she had read that night, almost as though she was oblivious to anything else.  Rerunning facts and sentences over in her head for the day, she came to realize that she hadn’t thought about anything else at all.  Of course that kid came back again, but she had disregarded him without so much as a sideways glance.  

This routine quickly became familiar; wake up, go to school, eat, study, repeat.  No socializing with the other children, no recesses spent outside on some unproductive game, simply a silent, comfortable routine filled with nothing but textbooks, homework, and a mind completely devoid of anything else.  She hadn’t questioned her clothing or her feelings on her biology- things like that didn’t bother her any more.  Her mind was always so full, so busy, so cramped that she had no room to think about things like that.  It had saved her, and while it certainly hadn’t made her feel happy, at least she wasn’t agonizing over the trivial emotions she got whenever she had to bathe or change clothing and she was left alone with nothing besides herself- the self that made her squirm.  She had grown quite the reputation at school; no one save for the redhead and his friend talked to her, and she rarely spoke unless it was to answer a question- which of course she knew the answer to.

That was, until one day when the red-haired boy had approached her and flat-out run his arm across her desk and sent all of the contents flying.  He had still bothered her every single day, trying to get her to talk.  Asing her stupid questions and commenting that she, ‘looked pretty today’- she swore that she was going to snap one day soon.  Nagisa let in a deep breath, exhaling slowly in an attempt to calm herself down and looking up at the boy leaning over her desk, focusing all of her anger in her gaze, trying to get him to go away before anything worse happened.  Of course, he was completely oblivious to this and proceeded to place himself closer, sitting on her desk and swinging his legs up in front of him, quite literally sitting criss-cross on the table in front of Nagisa.  His friend- who was nearly just as quiet as Nagisa was- was standing at a fair distance away from Nagisa, though close enough that he could observe the scene unfolding before him and send a little shrug in the blue-haired kid’s direction.  “Y’know, I don’t get you,” the boy on the desk begins, “You’re always just sittin’ here.  I’ve never seen you outside, and all you ever do is study!  Doesn’t it get boring after a while?”

“Well… Daimon, not everyone is a slacker like you are…” the other kid murmured, playing with the sleeves of his uniform.  Daimon- so that was his name- groaned and rested his head on one hand, balancing his elbow on his knee and narrowing his eyes at his friend’s direction.  

“Says the one who sits and draws all day!  Jatarou, you’re just as lazy as I am!”  Jatarou simply blinks and returns his attention to some spot on the floor that he had decided to turn his focus to.  Daimon rolls his eyes and lets out a little sigh, returning his gaze back to Nagisa, who was sitting in the same silence she had been moments ago, unphased by the two.  “Don’t ya ever wanna go outside?”

“No,” she replies bluntly, leaning over to pick up her textbook from the floor, dusting it off and opening it up to the page she had previously been reading.  The redhead let out a noise of annoyance.  “Figures… you’re a girl, so why would you want to go play outside in the dirt?  Girls hate getting dirty.”  Nagisa felt herself flinch, and she gripped the edges of her book, hard.  Slamming it shut forcefully, the noise resonating throughout the room, she stood up and struck her fists hard on the table in front of her, leaning so close to the boy that she could feel his hot breath on her face.  “I. Am. Not. A.  Girl!” she- no, not she.  HE.  He, not she, not anymore- he hissed, moving his hands from their place on the desk to forcefully grip Daimon’s shoulders, digging his nails harshly into his shoulder.  “I am a boy.  I am not a girl!,” he reiterated, forcing the boy backwards and sending him toppling off the desk.  The obnoxious kid looked up at him, a look of bewilderment and confusion in his gaze.  “Is it because of this?” he forcefully tugged on his skirt, “Because this doesn’t mean anything!  I was forced into these clothes.  I have no choice but to wear these clothes!” He could feel his voice getting shaky, and he began feeling that feeling again- it made him nauseous, and before he could even get permission from the teacher, he had grabbed his book and bolted out of the classroom and into the same stall in the bathroom as he had months ago at the beginning of the school year, balling himself up in the corner of the stall and shakily opening his book, turning to a random page and trying to focus on the words on the page, to no avail.  He couldn’t focus, so badly that he felt as though he forgot how to read, and the only thoughts that filled his mind were the familiar thoughts from months ago, but they were screaming- deafening.  Discarding the book entirely, he curled up into himself, gripping at his hair and trying to breath- just breath and even himself out.  

Eventually the teacher had made her way into the bathroom and talked him out of the stall, sending him to the nurse’s office for the rest of the day- she had promised not to tell his parents about his breakdown, and said it would be a secret between them.  He had fallen asleep the moment he reached home- silently, with the blanket pulled up over his head.

He trudged to school the next morning book in hand yet again as he entered the classroom, beelining for his desk and nearly not registering the two boys already occupying it; Jatarou taking residence in his chair and Daimon perched up on his desk like the day before.  Scowling, Nagisa let out a resigned sigh and shook his head.  “Go away.”

Daimon stubbornly shook his head, a sly smile plastered on his face.  “Nah,” he let his leg hang down from the desk, and the blue-haired boy had finally noticed the bag that he was holding in his lap, “We gotcha somethin’!”  Nagisa cocked an eyebrow, curiosity pricking at the edge of his mind; what could they have possibly gotten him?  They barely knew him.  The redhead shoved the bag into his arms, insisting he look inside.  

“I think you’ll like it… Daimon made a big fuss with the people in the office for this.  He was screeching like a broken record… stomping his feet-” the aforementioned boy elbowed Jatarou hard in the side, stammering out that he didn’t throw a fit, that a cool guy like him didn’t throw fits.  Warily reaching into the bag, Nagisa felt the soft texture of cloth on his fingertips- pulling it out of the bag entirely, his eyes grew wide at the gift.  He was astonished, but confused above all.

“Why… I mean, how-” he was rendered nearly speechless, his mouth hanging open.  It was a new uniform- a boy’s uniform.  “How did you get this?” he whispered, holding it up to his body.  It was exactly his size, and brand new- it hadn’t come from the other boy’s own closets.  

“Well… I marched on up to the office and said that we had a friend who needed a uniform.  We told them who, and they tried to argue and say that you couldn’t wear a boy’s uniform, but of course, being the awesome guy I am, I got them to make an exception!  If you’re one of us, you’ve gotta dress the part, right?”  Daimon said, hands on his hips and face twisted up in a proud expression.  Nagisa could see Jatarou mouth the words, ‘He threw a fit,’ behind the other boy’s back, but regardless of whether he truly threw a fit or not, the blue-haired boy couldn’t fathom any of his thoughts into words.  “Well don’t just stand there!” the fiery boy insisted, “Go put it on!”

Walking as swiftly as he could through the halls, he checked both ways and ran into the boy’s bathroom, quickly locking himself in one of the stalls and feeling his heart beating hard in his chest as he slipped on the new uniform, neatly folding up his old one and setting it down on the floor just outside the stall.  When he emerged from behind the door, Jatarou and Daimon were there to meet him- the latter gave him a thumbs up and Jatarou smiled from under his mask.  Nagisa could feel his legs growing weak as he walked over to the bathroom sink- breath hitching at the sight in the mirror.  He touched the cloth of his new uniform and stared, making sure that it was really him; it was as though the uniform held some sense of finality, like this was it.  Now that he had it, he felt like a boy.  He could be seen like a boy.  It didn’t hold much significance to what was under the cloth, but the power that a simple outfit held over him is silly when he really examined the situation, but it didn’t stop the sniffles and tears pricking at his eyes.  He quickly wiped his eyes with his hands, not wanting the other boys to see him like this, and turned back to them.  “I… I don’t understand,” he admitted, “Why did you do this?”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘why’?” Daimon asked, “Because you wanted to be a guy!”  

“But why? Why did you go through the trouble just for this?  Don’t you think it’s… weird?” Nagisa asked sheepishly.  

Jatarou cocked his head to the side, “Why would it be weird?... It’s not like you like to eat centipedes or anything… Though I’m sure they would be nutritious.”  Daimon’s face scrunched up a bit, letting out a little laugh and an overdramatic, “Ewwww!”.  “Anyways, it just seemed like the right thing to do… We knew something was wrong.  We’re not blind... Why didn’t you just say something from the beginning?”  Nagisa opened his mouth to answer, and quickly shut it again.  Why didn’t he say something?  Because he was scared of the rejection of strangers?  Because he was scared they were going to say something?  Because he feared there was no point in stating it since nothing was going to change as a result?

Deciding it would just lead to more questions, he simply shrugged.  Before he could say anything more, the recess bell resonated through the school and Daimon let out a little cheer.  “Yeah!  Finally!”  he pulled on Nagisa’s hand, “Do ya wanna come with us?  Or are you gonna sit inside again?”  Nagisa looked at the smiling faces of his two companions, and he let out a little cough, clearing his throat to try and regain his usual composure.

“Fine… but I’m not going to go roll around in the dirt… Or whatever it is you do for fun out there.” 


End file.
